To be in Satsang, in this work, means abandoning the ordinary model. This ordinary model is the idea you are there and I am here, two people interacting and exchanging ideas. To abandon that ordinary model means finding out the Truth about your Self, the Truth there are not two! The presence of a “someone,” independent of others and of the world is an illusion! That is the model everybody knows and was raised – the model of a separate existence, of a separate entity. Thus, these meetings are beautiful opportunities for us to identify the illusion of such model.
The acknowledgment of Reality brings the Awakening, the vision of Life as It is, free from fear, suffering, confusion and therefore free from that ordinary model of separation, of duality. You presume the “person” is not a thing. It seems offensive to say the "person" is also just a "thing," but every relationship you have with the world is a relationship with objects; all your interest in the world is in objects. What you name as a “person” is an idea, a belief, an image of a living organism you call as “someone.” If you see the world from the perspective of objects – which is how you see what is around you, from the standpoint of images – you end up imagining things, people, objects and the world as separate things. So, you live in that multiplicity and thought is present there. There is no inner Silence, no Consciousness, there is no room for the end of all this, for the end of this illusion, the illusion of that model.
In Satsang, you can go beyond that duality, that multiplicity. The mind is the one separating everything and creating this duality, and therefore, this relation with objects. In your Being, in your True Nature, you do not know objects. Your interest in objects or your relationship with the world in this way is purely mental. Why is all this important? Because as long as you do not know yourself in your Essential Nature, as Consciousness, your way to see the world will be completely distorted.
There is an inner restlessness caused by all the confusion thought produces to yourself. You are living through the thought, since that is how you were raised for life. A thought-based life is conflicting, since an object-focused life is a self-centered life. Not being able to see yourself is not being able to see others, the world, the life, and that is the viewpoint of objects. All your interest is in this self-centering, in this relationship with objects, in which desire and fear are present.
The question is: “Who are you?” To find out the Silence of your Real Nature, the absence of this mind’s condition, of this purely mental life model, this is what we are working on together, in Satsang. As long as you are involved in this mental life model, you are constantly waiting for something new to happen, for a new object to come, to complete yourself. Either you recognize yourself as Consciousness or you live in that mental life model!
All of you are waiting for something for tomorrow – maybe more children, a new marriage, a new home, a new job, opening up a business, being loved, becoming rich, famous people – so, you are always waiting for something tomorrow to be happy. It is always something you want or yearn. There is the structure of the ego, of this false "me," looking for a "someone" to "be someone." You were already married four times, and now you are going to marry for the fifth time! You have never been loved, but now you will be! You will find the right person, live in the right city, in the right country; there will be changes in your life... Things were not good yesterday, but they will be good tomorrow! It is always related to imagination, away from the present Reality. All this because you do not know the Truth about Yourself!
Maybe, within forty years, you will not be able to get there yet, but you will keep on trying. You want to keep on living another forty, fifty, sixty years under this search, this pursuit. Here, I want to invite you to go beyond the limits of time, of this model, of this circle, of the past and the future. Probably you are not happy with the past, otherwise you would not be in this room. You are still looking for something, a sign that you have not found it yet. Your model of life is that model of thought, of imagination: despair: past – hope: future.
It seems everybody is unhappy, since they are looking for something. When you are complete, happy, fulfilled, you do not search anymore! But your model, your conditioning is always towards searching, seeking. No matter if you were not happy in the past, you believe you will be in the future. However, your future will be like your past if you do not understand yourself right now.
This outside search always ends up in conflict, in another sort of fantasy. Satsang is the end of the illusion of that person constantly looking for something, hopeful about the future and hopeless about the past. The nature of the ego, the nature of the mind is always to seek continuity. What we propose to you is to know this "fire," this "flame" of Freedom. That is present when illusion dissolves, disappears. When you come here, I invite you to That, and I call That as “Something Natural and Simple.” It is about leaving the scene, leaving this illusion, abandoning this character, the illusion of seeing yourself and the world through this dualistic, separatist, conflicting mind.
You Realize the present Happiness when you find out “you” are not present there. There is no more search, no seek anymore (neither for spirituality nor for materiality). So, this Real Intelligence becomes Present! As long as there is some form of search, there will be problems.
So, it is not just the problem of a materialistic person, but also of someone involved with spirituality. What do we take for spirituality, anyway? It is reaching a world beyond this world itself! It is always the idea of conquering, achieving, getting there, acquiring, becoming someone special. You are not a worldly, materialist person; you are now a spiritual creature!
It seems quite strange and even absurd to hear all that for the first time, but life in the mind is a fraud! As long as thoughts are present, passing inside your head, producing images and saying you can accomplish this or that, you will be captured by the illusion, by the sense of "me,” by the sense of separation. That is why I have been warning you about the importance of Meditation. This fundamental ignorance needs to be exposed! This model of relationship with objects needs to be recognized! Now, you have understood: these objects may have the nature of materiality or spirituality, but they are still objects, mind projections, thought projections.
Participant: Master, my head is so full that I cannot meditate!
Marcos Gualberto: Meditation is not an empty head; Meditation is the absence of the head! When there is not the head, Meditation is present. The presence of the head is always the presence of content. Head is content! Wherever the head is, the content is. These thoughts, these feelings, these emotions are activities motivated by that conditioning, by all the craziness of that illusion, that sense of “me,” that sense of separation, and that is the head’s presence. All of this begins to fade away, little by little, in this contact with your Essential Nature, your Divine Nature.
That Consciousness itself, your Essential Nature, begins to reveal itself, begins to show you what Meditation is. I am not talking about a practice; I am talking about approaching the recognition that You do not have a head, that You are not a separate entity in a relationship with the world. All this restlessness, all this internal confusion is present in this illusion.
Every thought inside yourself is not You. You are the Reality where thought takes place! You are not the thought! This Reality, where thought takes place, is this Consciousness I am talking about, and This is not found in a relationship with the world, in the duality "the world and me." That requires work, a real work involvement with yourself.
The mind will not give up its place so easily. Everything you know about yourself is false; it is the mind knowing. You cannot know what you are; and what you know is not what you are. What You are cannot and does not need to be known. You know what you are not, and that is totally useless, since it is not the Truth.
The acknowledgment of Reality brings the Awakening, the vision of Life as It is, free from fear, suffering, confusion and therefore free from that ordinary model of separation, of duality. You presume the “person” is not a thing. It seems offensive to say the "person" is also just a "thing," but every relationship you have with the world is a relationship with objects; all your interest in the world is in objects. What you name as a “person” is an idea, a belief, an image of a living organism you call as “someone.” If you see the world from the perspective of objects – which is how you see what is around you, from the standpoint of images – you end up imagining things, people, objects and the world as separate things. So, you live in that multiplicity and thought is present there. There is no inner Silence, no Consciousness, there is no room for the end of all this, for the end of this illusion, the illusion of that model.
In Satsang, you can go beyond that duality, that multiplicity. The mind is the one separating everything and creating this duality, and therefore, this relation with objects. In your Being, in your True Nature, you do not know objects. Your interest in objects or your relationship with the world in this way is purely mental. Why is all this important? Because as long as you do not know yourself in your Essential Nature, as Consciousness, your way to see the world will be completely distorted.
There is an inner restlessness caused by all the confusion thought produces to yourself. You are living through the thought, since that is how you were raised for life. A thought-based life is conflicting, since an object-focused life is a self-centered life. Not being able to see yourself is not being able to see others, the world, the life, and that is the viewpoint of objects. All your interest is in this self-centering, in this relationship with objects, in which desire and fear are present.
The question is: “Who are you?” To find out the Silence of your Real Nature, the absence of this mind’s condition, of this purely mental life model, this is what we are working on together, in Satsang. As long as you are involved in this mental life model, you are constantly waiting for something new to happen, for a new object to come, to complete yourself. Either you recognize yourself as Consciousness or you live in that mental life model!
All of you are waiting for something for tomorrow – maybe more children, a new marriage, a new home, a new job, opening up a business, being loved, becoming rich, famous people – so, you are always waiting for something tomorrow to be happy. It is always something you want or yearn. There is the structure of the ego, of this false "me," looking for a "someone" to "be someone." You were already married four times, and now you are going to marry for the fifth time! You have never been loved, but now you will be! You will find the right person, live in the right city, in the right country; there will be changes in your life... Things were not good yesterday, but they will be good tomorrow! It is always related to imagination, away from the present Reality. All this because you do not know the Truth about Yourself!
Maybe, within forty years, you will not be able to get there yet, but you will keep on trying. You want to keep on living another forty, fifty, sixty years under this search, this pursuit. Here, I want to invite you to go beyond the limits of time, of this model, of this circle, of the past and the future. Probably you are not happy with the past, otherwise you would not be in this room. You are still looking for something, a sign that you have not found it yet. Your model of life is that model of thought, of imagination: despair: past – hope: future.
It seems everybody is unhappy, since they are looking for something. When you are complete, happy, fulfilled, you do not search anymore! But your model, your conditioning is always towards searching, seeking. No matter if you were not happy in the past, you believe you will be in the future. However, your future will be like your past if you do not understand yourself right now.
This outside search always ends up in conflict, in another sort of fantasy. Satsang is the end of the illusion of that person constantly looking for something, hopeful about the future and hopeless about the past. The nature of the ego, the nature of the mind is always to seek continuity. What we propose to you is to know this "fire," this "flame" of Freedom. That is present when illusion dissolves, disappears. When you come here, I invite you to That, and I call That as “Something Natural and Simple.” It is about leaving the scene, leaving this illusion, abandoning this character, the illusion of seeing yourself and the world through this dualistic, separatist, conflicting mind.
You Realize the present Happiness when you find out “you” are not present there. There is no more search, no seek anymore (neither for spirituality nor for materiality). So, this Real Intelligence becomes Present! As long as there is some form of search, there will be problems.
So, it is not just the problem of a materialistic person, but also of someone involved with spirituality. What do we take for spirituality, anyway? It is reaching a world beyond this world itself! It is always the idea of conquering, achieving, getting there, acquiring, becoming someone special. You are not a worldly, materialist person; you are now a spiritual creature!
It seems quite strange and even absurd to hear all that for the first time, but life in the mind is a fraud! As long as thoughts are present, passing inside your head, producing images and saying you can accomplish this or that, you will be captured by the illusion, by the sense of "me,” by the sense of separation. That is why I have been warning you about the importance of Meditation. This fundamental ignorance needs to be exposed! This model of relationship with objects needs to be recognized! Now, you have understood: these objects may have the nature of materiality or spirituality, but they are still objects, mind projections, thought projections.
Participant: Master, my head is so full that I cannot meditate!
Marcos Gualberto: Meditation is not an empty head; Meditation is the absence of the head! When there is not the head, Meditation is present. The presence of the head is always the presence of content. Head is content! Wherever the head is, the content is. These thoughts, these feelings, these emotions are activities motivated by that conditioning, by all the craziness of that illusion, that sense of “me,” that sense of separation, and that is the head’s presence. All of this begins to fade away, little by little, in this contact with your Essential Nature, your Divine Nature.
That Consciousness itself, your Essential Nature, begins to reveal itself, begins to show you what Meditation is. I am not talking about a practice; I am talking about approaching the recognition that You do not have a head, that You are not a separate entity in a relationship with the world. All this restlessness, all this internal confusion is present in this illusion.
Every thought inside yourself is not You. You are the Reality where thought takes place! You are not the thought! This Reality, where thought takes place, is this Consciousness I am talking about, and This is not found in a relationship with the world, in the duality "the world and me." That requires work, a real work involvement with yourself.
The mind will not give up its place so easily. Everything you know about yourself is false; it is the mind knowing. You cannot know what you are; and what you know is not what you are. What You are cannot and does not need to be known. You know what you are not, and that is totally useless, since it is not the Truth.
*Online meeting transcription originally held on July 24th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on November 3rd, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.
Oh! Bhagavan, you are the Sun of my days!
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